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Its become almost as common a Jewish refrain as Mazal tov or Shabbat shalom. Liberal Jews are falling over one another to label President Trump the latest incarnation of Jew-haters from Pharaoh to Haman to Hitler.

These attacks have ranged from the exaggerated to the absurd. And while these inflated diatribes are concerning enough, a new theme has developed that is as baffling as it is destructive: Jew-shaming.

There has long been an expectation in Jewish circles that members of the tribe should support leftist policies and candidates. The thinking is that the Jews centuries-long persecution compels them to support the party that professes to protect persecuted minorities. Like women and African Americans, leftists are often shocked to stumble across the existence of conservatives who are Jewish, female, or black.

As a member of this endangered species, Im familiar with this phenomenon. As a Jewish, female political conservative, I am often met with bewilderment. I am also sensitive to the history of persecution. I lost too many relatives in the Holocaust. This persecution is undeniable and unforgettable. Whats baffling is why people think they can decide for me, for Jared Kushner, and for any other Jew what Judaism means to us or how we should vote as Jews.

Over the past couple of months, a parade of liberals has argued that Jewish values are antithetical to supporting Trump or any of his policies. Award-winning reporter Jonathan Freedland recently opined in the Jewish Chronicle, Put simply, Jews should want nothing to do with Trumpism. In November, the Israeli left-wing paper Haaretz published an opinion piece by Ann Toback, the Workmens Circle executive director, which laid out her version of the Eleventh Commandment: that Jews shouldnt legitimize hate by attending a Hanukkah party at Trump Tower.

This is a new form of liberal audacity that seeks to tell Jews what to believe and how to practice their faith. It is not just a moral imperative to raise taxes, support gay marriage, and legalize abortion. It is now a religious imperative, as if God Himself descended on the National Mall and decreed it so.

This audacity came to a head this week after the presidents executive order on refugees. Suddenly, every Jewish group and activist appointed itself the moral authority on Jewish values. And even worse, some writers used their perverse versions of Judaism to shame Jews with whom they disagree.

The worst of the worst came from the Forward, where senior columnist Peter Beinart sought to indict Kushners moral identity as a Jew. After declaring that the challenge for our extraordinarily privileged generation is to remember our ancestors pain, Beinart wrote:

How could Kushner a Modern Orthodox golden boy fail to internalize that? How could he invite Donald Trumps Cabinet to his house for Shabbat dinner only hours after his father-in-laws executive order banning refugees from entering the United States?

Beinarts argument reeks of intellectual laziness and rank arrogance. There are plenty of substantial arguments one can make against the executive order, and Beinart is as free as anyone to throw his hat in the ring. But Beinart goes straight for the jugular, declaring Kushner a failure of Modern Orthodoxy.

Last I checked, Beinart is neither God nor prophet. Hes no Moses or Joshua. He and his cohorts dont get to decide who is a good Jew and who is not. Their attempt to do so is a disservice to America and to Judaism.

American democracy and Jewish tradition share a common appreciation for the power of debate. Not only is debate sanctioned, it is encouraged. Disagreement and challenge help us achieve greater understanding and clarity, provided we do it respectfully and constructively. When leftists exploit Judaism as a political weapon, they discredit their own position as well as the religion they claim to uphold.

Theres a word in Biblical Hebrew that means disgrace: bizayon. In Jewish tradition, it is prohibited to make a bizayon out of sacred objects, such as the Torah or the religion itself. I cannot think of a greater disgrace than to manipulate Judaism for political purposes to attack other peoples Jewish faith.

If Beinart and others want to turn to the sacred Torah for guidance, they should learn from Moses, who asked God in a recent Torah portion, in the third chapter in Exodus, Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should take the Children of Israel out of Egypt? When it comes to judging other peoples religiosity, Beinart and his friends would do well to take their cue from Mosess humility.

And in this era of vicious political attacks spread on social media, wed all do well to take a moment and ask ourselves, Who are we, that we should issue religious indictments on our fellow Jews? One thing is for sure, that will get us all a lot further than remaking Judaism in our own political image.

Nachama Soloveichik is vice president at Cold Spark Media.

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Stop the Jew-Shaming - National Review

Recently at University of California-Berkeley, Milo Yiannopoulos was set to give a talk about cultural appropriation and he had to be evacuated by his security detail and police, who feared that he was in danger because of protests that broke out on the campus. Since this event took place, I have heard many liberals argue that Yiannopoulos should not be afforded the right to speak on Berkeleys campus, or any campus. As a liberal I find this to be a shocking response and an absolute betrayal of the liberal principles that I believe in. Despite the fact that I am a liberal and I disagree with much of Yiannopoulos thoughts on a variety of issues, I think it is fundamentally important that his right to say what he thinks is protected.

I am certainly sympathetic to the protesters who find Yiannopoulos presence inappropriate. At this time, possibly more than any other time in my life I think it is reasonable for liberals to be on their guard and maybe even to feel sensitive. However, the idea that I would feel it necessary to defend free speech is pretty surprising to me. I dont find it necessary to point out why free speech is inherently a good thing. I think most people know its benefits. I dont think liberals are reacting so strongly to Yiannopoulos speech because they dont see the merit in free speech, but rather because they are scared of his ideas. They shouldnt be. So instead of listing the benefits of free speech we all already know, I would put forward this question: If you think that your ideas are better, or even the correct ones, then why are you afraid of having a debate? I think it may be reasonable to say that if you want to stand behind a liberal idea, lets say in this case the idea of cultural appropriation, then stand behind it. If you really think that it will fail when challenged by a conservatives viewpoint, then why do you support it in the first place?

One thing that I have heard liberals say about this issue that I find particularly concerning is this idea of normalizing hate speech as free speech. I am not taking sides on whether what Yiannopoulos says is hate speech or not, as that is not the point I am interested in making. The idea that something can be normalized as free speech is an oxymoron, necessarily. This statement implies that there is something that can be said that also does not fall under the category of free speech. This obviously would not be any serious kind of free speech. A freedom to say anything you want except for a few things is but a mockery of free speech and should be seen for the farce it is.

Now, if liberals are not concerned with maintaining free speech because of its merits alone and if they want to limit access to free speech in an effort to protect the marginalized minorities, then they are still making a mistake. If ignoring the benefits of free speech, it may seem like a good idea to limit the speech of someone like Yiannopoulos, who argues for the conservatives because you want to protect those groups that lack power in our society. Thats a laudable goal if there ever was one, but unfortunately I think even that fails to provide justification for limiting Yiannopoulos free speech. This is because as soon as we put limiting free speech on the table, it is not the groups out of power who will be able to use it generally; it is those groups that already have power who can use it to maintain that power. History is riddled with examples of power groups limiting the civil rights of others, including free speech, to maintain their dominance. Unless you want to return to a time like the Red Scare, where the spreading of communist literature can be compared to yelling Fire! in a crowded theatre, then it may be a better idea to not let the idea of removing free speech ever to be seen as legitimate, even if it helps those who are marginalized at first glance.

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OPINION: Liberals need to let conservatives talk - N.C. State University Technician Online

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Outgoing Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) called the vacancies a judicial emergency, according to Bay Area public radio station KQED, even though there are 29 judges on the court. The emergency is that Trumps nominees might be able to make the court more conservative.

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The Ninth Circuits jurisdiction covers many West Coast states, and its decisions have often reflected the liberal political culture of California and other left coast outposts. Over the past several decades, the frequency with which the U.S. Supreme Court which had a narrow 5-4 conservative majority until 2016 reversedNinth Circuit rulings became a recurring theme. However, the Ninth Circuit has shown flashes of independence, as in recent Second Amendment rulings.

Liberals are worried about that increasing moderation at the Ninth Circuit. KQED interviewedUniversity of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias, who commented: I think even in the Obama years the court has moved to be more moderate than it used to be, so I think that with those four appointments it could make some difference and move the court further in that direction.

On some issues, particularly on gay marriage, the liberal outlook of the Ninth Circuit has also become accepted more widely. The Supreme Courts ruling onHollingsworth v. Perry (2013), for example, vacated the Ninth Circuits ruling on procedural grounds but effectively paved the way for the legalization of same-sex marriage in California and elsewhere.

Barring a last-minute set of recess appointments, Trump will be able to fill the four vacancies, subject to the approvalof the Senate. During the election, Trump produced a list of potential conservative judicial nominees to the Supreme Court.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the most influential people in news media in 2016. His new book,See No Evil: 19 Hard Truths the Left Cant Handle, is available from Regnery through Amazon. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

See the rest here:
Liberals Panic as Trump Could Flip Left-Leaning Ninth Circuit

In the 1997 case Printz v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional for the federal government to direct state and local law enforcement officers to enforce certain provisions of the 1993 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act.

"The Federal Government may neither issue directives requiring the States to address particular problems," the late Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in his majority opinion, "nor command the States' officers, or those of their political subdivisions, to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program." In short, Printz held, the feds may not commandeer the states for federal purposes.

At the time it was decided, Printz was criticized by many liberals for being a "conservative" decision that promoted states' rights at the expense of duly enacted national reforms. In other words, they saw it as a case of the 10th Amendment run amok.

Liberals today are more likely to view Scalia's handiwork in a far more favorable light. That's because Printz now serves as perhaps the single best legal precedent in support of the constitutionality of so-called sanctuary citiesmunicipalities that either won't help the federal government round up and deport undocumented immigrants or otherwise refuse to participate in the enforcement of federal immigration laws.

Sanctuary cities have become a hot topic since the election of Donald Trump. Less than a week after Trump won, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo took to Facebook with a defiant message for the incoming administration. "We won't allow a federal government that attacks immigrants to do so in our state," he declared. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel was equally blunt: The Windy City, he said, "will always be a sanctuary city." Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck announced that his department was "not going to work in conjunction with Homeland Security on deportation efforts. That is not our job, nor will I make it our job."

Federal authorities retain their own power to enforce national laws in those places. But the lack of meaningful local cooperation is no small hindrance. In effect, these cities are a bulwark against the far-reaching national agenda of border hawks in Washington.

If you like the sound of that, take a moment to thank Justice Scalia. As he made clear in Printz, "federal commandeering of state governments" goes against the text, structure, and history of the Constitution. Trump may not want to hear it, but "such commands are fundamentally incompatible with our system of dual sovereignty."

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Will Liberals Learn to Love the 10th Amendment? - Reason

(Adding: protests held on Saturday)

The unlikely battle over the confirmation of Betsy DeVos as President Trumps nominee for education secretary is becoming even more pitched in the final days before a Senate vote with the airing of hundreds of thousands of dollars of advertisements attacking extreme liberals full of rage and hate who oppose her while protests against her were being staged around the country.

The controversy over the nomination of DeVos, a Michigan billionaire, is the most ferocious of any education secretary in the nearly 40-year history of the Education Department, and of any Trump nominee and it is only likely to deepen until there is a vote early next week on the Senate floor. The vote stands, it is believed, at 50-50, including two Republicans who have come out against DeVos despite enormous pressure from the GOP to support her. If no senator changes position, Vice President Pence would have to break the tie to confirm her.

Republican leaders and a White House spokesman said they are sure she will be confirmed, but her opponents are still hoping to persuade one Republican senator to switch sides this weekend. Senate offices in Washington and in the states have been swamped with phone calls and emails in some cases unprecedented numbers.

Supporters of DeVos say that she is a champion of school choice who wants to help students find the best educational opportunities and that the opposition is coming from partisan Democrats playing politics. Her critics say that her advocacy for charter schools and vouchers and support for religious schools shows her determination to privatize public education and that she is out of the mainstream even in the school choice world, evidenced by opposition to her from many supporters of school choice.

In the final days before the vote, the wrangling over the nomination is increasing and taking some unusual turns.

Advertisements began running on television in support of DeVos, with one of them saying:

Why is the radical left so full of rage and hate? They still cant accept that Trump won and they lost. Now extreme liberals like Elizabeth Warren are trying to stop Betsy DeVos from becoming secretary of education. DeVos angers the extreme left because she exposes their hypocrisy. DeVos wants low-income kids to have the same choices that liberal elitists have for their families. DeVos wants equal opportunity in education for all kids, and that makes angry liberals even angrier.

The ads are being paid for by a conservative group called America Next, which has both ads posted on its website, and is led by Bobby Jindal, the former Louisiana governor who had a short-lived campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. The group is spending, according to Politico, a half-million dollars on the ads. They follow a digital pro-DeVos advertising campaign launched by America Rising Squared an arm of the Republican super PAC America Rising.

Although supporters of DeVos blame the opposition on Democrats and the two teachers unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, critics come from the political spectrum. Some conservative Republicans oppose her in part because they say she supports the Common Core State Standards, though she says she doesnt; she is a strong ally of former Florida governor Jeb Bush who was a big Core supporter for years. Parents with children with disabilities have come out against her, saying they dont believe she will protect their interests, and many school choice supporters, such as billionaire Eli Broad, who would have been expected to support her are in fact opposing her, saying they dont think she believes in public education. She says she does. Hundreds of students and graduates from the Christian college she attended, Calvin College, wrote against her nomination too, saying she isnt qualified and didnt care enough about public schools.

Meanwhile protests are being held in cities across the country this weekend, some of them organized by teachers unions, to try to persuade at least one Republican senator to vote against her, which would tank the nomination. Among the protests on Saturday was one in Denver outside the office of Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), urging him to vote against he, and one in Verona, N.J., where hundreds gathered to protest DeVos:

On Friday, a few hundred people protested in front of the west Omaha offices of Sen. Deb Fischer(R-Neb.), asking her to do the same. Fischer was one Republican that DeVos critics had hoped would buck the GOP leadership on the vote because she has stated that she opposes vouchers, which DeVos supports, and is a strong supporter of public education, but the senator came out in support of DeVos.

There were protests in Kansas by teachers, parents and others urging Sen. Jerry Moran (R) to change his mind after he came out in support of DeVos, and in Philadelphia, protesters appeared at the offices of Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) to try to persuade him to reverse his decision to vote for her. He said he wouldnt.

One teacher, Katherine Fritz, noting that DeVos had donated $55,800 to Toomeys campaign, started a tongue-in-cheek $60,050 fundraising effort to pay for Toomeys vote on GoFundMe.com. She actually got more than that, over$66,000 from almost4,000 people in two days, the website says. She wrote:

Betsy DeVos has never set foot in a classroom, did not send her children to public school, cannot distinguish between proficiency and growth, and thinks that guns should be allowed in schools in the event of grizzly attacks. That fictitious grizzly is about as qualified as Ms. DeVos to run the Department of Education.

If Betsy DeVos can buy Senator Toomeys vote, we should be allowed to do the same.

If, of course, Senator Toomey does not wish to accept any funds raised*, all money will be donated to Camp Sojourner, the Pennsylvania Arts Education Network, and the Childrens Literacy Initiative.

Other people started a GoFundMe.com campaigns to buy the votes of other senators who had accepted donations from DeVos, including Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio).

In Utah, the Salt Lake Tribune reported, a woman named Julia Silge couldnt get through to the office of her senator, Orrin G. Hatch (R), for weeks to talk about DeVos, so she bought a ham-and-pineapple pizza and tried to get it delivered to the office with a note saying, From a Salt Lake constituent in 84105: Please vote NO on Betsy DeVos. She is an inappropriate choice to lead our public schools.

Alas, it didnt get through, but the office saw the pizza order after she posted it on Twitter, the newspaper said.

A new element has entered the debate about DeVos whether the opposition to DeVos is sexist. The line goes that DeVos is being attacked by critics for being clueless about key education issues, which she displayed during her Jan. 17 confirmation hearing but other Cabinet nominees who have known next to nothing about their portfolios have been confirmed, such as neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who said he wasnt qualified to run a federal government department before he decided to accept Trumps offer to run the Department of Housing and Urban Development. However, Nikki Haley wasnt exactly an expert on foreign affairs when she, as governor of South Carolina, was tapped by Trump and confirmed by the Senate to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

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Pro-DeVos ads air, saying 'liberal' critics are full of 'rage and hate,' as anti-DeVos protests are held - Washington Post